Unfortunately for us winning that match now means we have to play a shedload more against people
who are all better than us.

If we beat a single one of the 31 other national sides, it will be more by luck than skill
because not only are we a bit crap, as a nation we’ve had a football stuck up
our backside since 1966 and we fall apart just thinking about the word
“penalties”.

Think I’m being too negative? Until last night we were 17th in the World Cup rankings. Colombia
and the Dutch were seen as better than us, along with Greece, Switzerland, and
Croatia.

Name me a world-famous Swiss footballer. Go on. See?
All they’ve got is mountains, Nazi gold and a tennis player, and they’re STILL better than us.

And then there’s the international public relations aspect of the whole thing.
We’re going to send two dozen of our least-educated men to represent us in South America,
where they will run around on the pitch sweating beer as only English people
can.

Between games, their wives and partners will shop, sunbathe, and fight with each other.
Perhaps one or two of them will find time to visit a Rio favela to feel sorry for a slum-dweller
while their photograph is taken for charidee, then it’ll be back to the
five-star hotel and £1,500 handbags.

Wayne Rooney will no doubt be able to dovetail the trip into getting himself some new hair again
and Ashley Cole can be relied upon to do something filthy with someone who’ll
go straight to the papers with it.
That’s without even mentioning the walking chunk of stupid that is JackWilshere.

What a wonderful advertisement for our country that little lot will be!
Not only will we lose, we’ll do it in as sweaty, seedy and stupid a style as we can.

That’s not to say there’s nothing wrong with hoping. Long shots sometimes come off, dreams can
come true, and perhaps every player in the 31 other teams will all sprain their
ankles.

There is something endearing in our continued, fervent belief that we can win the World Cup,
something typically English. It’s the same kind of blind
optimism and lack of basic logic which led to the Charge of the Light Brigade,
which resulted in Dunkirk, and which led to both the start and the
end of Empire.

All of which, it must be pointed out, involved losing.

It’s a bit like watching a fracking protester say everyone should compost their old knickers to
self-supply a miniature wind turbine on the side of their high-rise flat.
It’s a nice idea, but just daft.

Luckily there is something we can do about it, and which enables the English to retain a sense
of superiority, the moral high ground, and a sense of national worth.

Now we’ve qualified for the World Cup we should withdraw from it.

We’ve proved our point – we’re in the running. But pushing ahead with a squad of half-baked,
overpaid ponces who will inevitably crash out before the semis will only make
us look bad.

Let us leave now, with our noses in the air, and say our overpaid ponces are above all that.
Let us act like gentlemen, and magnanimously allow the chippier nations to fight it out amongst
themselves while our lads play some testimonials or coach some kiddlywinks.

Let us rise above the WAGS, the fighting, the boffing and the boozing, wave the tailgating Swiss
and Colombians right past us in a spirit of Christian forbearance and at least
retain our dignity.

Then, when we’re ready and not before, we can stroll right up and take the World Cup with good
grace, a bit of nous and above all the right to grab hold of it.
We’d save ourselves years of penalty pain, tabloid embarrassments and wasted time and
money.
And we might even look like we knew what we doing, for once.